Paul Poast

Four points to help us determine the cost of war (i.e., its real effects on the economy):

1. the state of the economy prior to the onset of war, 
2. the location of the war, 
3. the extent of the mobilization, i.e., manpower and weapons, and 
4. the duration of the war, the cost, and how the war is financed. 

Simple confidence was again a factor in the economic expansion in the decade after the end of the cold war.

Technological contributions to the economy like the Internet, which was developed by cold war researchers, certainly helped the expansion. But something less definable — an overall sense that history had taken a turn for the better — was at least as powerful. When you take away the threat of nuclear annihilation that helps things.